Residents In Merced, CA, Speak Out On Potential Distribution Center

We’re going to take an ever-so-short break from Wal-Mart and the labor fight to return to the “roots” of the grassroots organizing against the retailer - namely objections to the company’s expansion. To the right is the view from inside a mammoth Wal-Mart Distribution Center. It is big...REAL big. In fact, just a couple months ago, Al Norman laid out exactly HOW big a new Distribution Center in Merced, CA, would be:

This enormous project will consume 270 acres on the southeast side of Merced, a community of roughly 70,000 people. The Distribution Center will pave over 100 acres of prime farmland, to create a 1,200,000 s.f. building—the equivalent of six supercenters under one roof, or 24 football fields. The pavement and parking lot for the facility is 4,353,000 s.f. There is room at the site for 300 parking spaces for tractor-trailers.

Did we mention it’s big? Well what this picture doesn’t illustrate are the environmental concerns of a distribution center beyond simple size - the 24 hours of light affecting local wildlife (and people), the millions of tons of particulates spewed into the air by hundreds of trucks and thousands of cars traveling to and from daily.

As the DC has moved forward, most notably with the release of the City’s draft Environmental Impact Report, opposition has risen as well - see the Merced Stop Wal-Mart Action Team. This week, letters have continued to flow in to local papers opposing the development. These are just a handful of our favorite examples:

Letter: China says ‘thank you’ [Merced Sun-Star]

China says “Thank you, Merced.”

Thank you for building the Wal-Mart distribution center in your town.

Yes, the creation of a few hundred jobs in Merced employed thousands of us to manufacture the cheap stuff you buy at Wal-Mart.

And as your fair city basks in the 24 hours of daylight from the towers of stadium lighting and the comforting hum (visible and audible for miles) of idling trucks, grinding gears, the occasional tooth rattling slam of a load hitting the 100 acres of asphalt, and as your school- children breathe the poison belched from 900 trucks a day, China says thanks and keep supporting the People’s Republic of China by shopping at Wal-Mart.

MICHAEL J. LEONARD
Merced

Check out more after the jump.

Letter: Misleading headline on Wal-Mart story? [Merced Sun-Star]
April 30, 2009

“Opponents of Wal-Mart distribution center are aligned with attorneys, environmentalists,” according to Scott Jason’s front page article in the Tuesday Sun-Star.

In fact, only one attorney is named in the article.

But the headline the article, by using the plural, creates the impression that those opposing the Wal-Mart distribution center are a group top-heavy with those pesky lawyers and cursed environmentalists—as opposed to those speaking out in favor of project, who are presumably just ordinary, decent citizens, who just don’t get what the big fuss is all about with respect to the environment.

(After all, our air has always been dirty, so why can’t the kids with asthma just deal with it?—as one person quoted by Jason seemed to be saying.)

I am willing to bet that Wal-Mart also employs attorneys to further its corporate aims.

In fact, I am willing to bet that for every lawyer who serves the side opposing Wal-Mart in this issue, Wal-Mart employs a dozen, well paid, to fight for it.

So why not a headline saying, “Millionaire Wal-Mart corporate executives spend big bucks on attorneys to fight for distribution center?”

I’m sure if Jason dug deep, he would find a lot there to support such a headline.

PETER LIZDAS
Merced

Letter: Reasons to worry about Wal-Mart [Merced Sun-Star]
April 29, 2009

Editor: My wife and I are very concerned about the building of the Wal-Mart distribution center in Merced for several reasons.

True, jobs will be created, but Wal-Mart is known for its relationship with its workers.

They are anti-union with low wages and poor health-care benefits that could lead to a financial problem for our county.

We are especially concerned about the tremendous amount of truck traffic at the interchange that will also be used by students, professors and guests who will be traveling to UC Merced.

As teachers have undoubtedly informed you, the asthma problems with children in their classrooms is very high.

Truck traffic is to blame for many of the hazardous pollutants in our air. We must seriously consider their health when considering Wal-Mart. It truly is a problem and not a myth.

Lastly, most of the profits from Wal-Mart go back to Arkansas and its billionaire families; how about attracting businesses here whose profits stay in our county?

CHARLES and SALLY MAGNESON
Ballico

Letter: Katrina ignorant? [Merced Sun-Star]
April 28, 2009

Editor: We live on a flood plain that has existed since this great Valley was a sea with dinosaurs swimming.

In 1850, most of Merced County was sold by the U.S. government under the Swampland Reclamation Act at a very low price. The railroad picked up some of it to build the tracks that go through the center of the Valley. Ranchers drove their cattle into the mountains to keep them out of floodwaters when they grazed.

We learned how to pump water from one place to another to dry up land for one purpose and use the water for other purposes. People seem to have forgotten that if nature had her way we would still be a flood plain with a lot of swampland.

In 2006, the water runoff at the peak of county construction boom successfully flooded Ashby Road, a mobile home park on Highway 59, parts of Sandy Mush Road and left cattle standing in water dying in fields.

Now Wal-Mart has submitted an EIR for our flood plain with the intent of blacktopping 110 acres near schools, UC Merced and residential housing.

To do this would be a flooding accident waiting to happen. Does Wal-Mart think Merced is Katrina ignorant? The follow-up question: Are we Katrina ignorant and will we let them do it?

JOAN PORTER
Merced

Posted by Corey Himrod on Friday, May 01, 2009